Blink and you missed it


The conditions held and I did get out to watch Spica disappear behind the moon. I tried a short video clip, unable to tell if it was actually capturing Spica or not but suspecting that it wasn’t – the frame rates for video translate to a pretty short shutter speed and even as bright as it was in comparison, Spica was still pretty dim. Upon returning home, I found that read more

Preliminary


Just now, took a peek out there as the sky was darkening, noticed that it was more than clear enough, and did a couple of test shots. I also noticed another speck in the viewfinder and reframed, but I was still working handheld and sharpness was lacking. As I was setting up the tripod and getting the remote release out and the camera set for mirror lockup*, the last little light read more

Watch Spica vanish before your eyes!


I really haven’t been finding posting material recently, because I’ve had a lot of other things going on, though I have a few unrelated pics that may show up a little later. Right now, I’m providing what little warning I can, having discovered only this morning that the moon will be occulting Spica this evening.

Basic orbital dynamics: the stars move across the read more

Too cool, part 52: Falcon transit

The latest ‘Too Cool’ entry comes from Astronomy Picture of the Day again, but wonder of wonders, it’s not a composite edited photo – I was starting to think this was a requirement for them. Instead, this is a carefully planned and timed shot, one that took a lot more effort than it might first appear.


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Cut y’self

Many things happening this week, in many directions, so little of it was photography. Part of this was, I was getting some warning signs that my ‘Main’ harddrive was about to fail, and I replaced it, copying it over onto a new drive – but the program that I used took something like 27-28 hours to complete this task (just over a terabyte of info,) and I suspect it would read more

Tripod holes 25


N 28° 8’18.14″ W 80°37’49.41″ Google Earth location

This one’s precise – not of where I was standing, because the angle isn’t perfectly recalled, but certainly of the tree itself, which is still there despite this image being taken in 2003, I believe. I was cruising around at night on my bicycle looking for good subjects for B&W film and realized that read more

Not the Beehive!

I have a small number of images to post from an outing yesterday, but first, some images from a later outing (because they’re fewer and easier and I’m lazy.) We’ll start with a comparison.


That’s the moon on top, seen through many obscuring tree branches because I wasn’t out there after the moon, but I was using it for sharp focus, because what I was read more

Extraneous


I have a lot of video editing to do, which you will see the evidence of shortly – probably not tonight, but it should be within 24 hours anyway. Right now, I’m just throwing up a quick moon pic, taken early this morning as I was setting up the tripod – the detail came out nicely, and I didn’t even bother boosting contrast or anything. Just wanted read more

Why is this still here?

Starting to catch up on a few tasks here and there, and went into the image stock folders on the magic meme box (what some stodgy people call a ‘computer’) to see how much needed to be cleaned up in there. And realized that I still have a ‘Facebook’ folder with a handful of images in there.

You may have noticed the anti-social media widget over there on the sidebar, and if read more

Looking back on those we post in 2021

Okay, was that a particularly terrible title? I dunno, it had that certain cliché-trashing aspect to it…

Anyway, a look back at posts and photos from last year that I’m fond of, which you should definitely consider fair warning, because you’re not getting any others. There will be a couple more posts of a similar nature coming, one of them the annual tag roundup, so this will have read more

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